Movie Review: Bram Stoker's Dracula (Part 2)

Back in London we're introduced to the far more interesting trio of Lucy's suitors, which consists of a bumbling Dr. Seward, a guy mimicking George W. Bush's speech patterns ten years early, and Cary Elwes. Seriously, Elwes is awesome. He's my favorite part of the film. He seems to know what kind of movie he's in and hams it up plenty. Plus he rocks a killer waxed handlebar mustache. It's no wonder the smooth motherf***er ends up bagging Lucy. The guy just has to say "As you wish" and women melt and bend to his will. It's the English Lord equivalent of Bruce Campbell's "Give me some sugar, baby."

We also get a few scenes of Dr. Seward at his asylum, talking to a miscast Tom Waits as Renfield (seriously, he looks like a character in Battleship Potemkin, and I can't get that out of my mind). On top of that, why do they allow a dangerous lunatic to have that little Freddy Krueger glove thing? Does that seem like a good idea? We also notice that the asylum is staffed by Pyramid Head's less creative brothers, and that the Doctor has a little morphine addiction. Which is never referenced again in the film, so the one scene where it's shown is completely pointless. So much for character development.

At one point Lucy runs out to tell Mina that she's accepted Cary Elwes' marriage proposal. Then it starts raining, so they...run around the garden and briefly make out. I'm thinking when he was working on the Godfather, Coppola thought, "You know what would make this movie awesome? Two chicks making out!" While you can't really fault that logic, it does feel more than a little bit forced. It's like the guy has spent his entire career trying to shoehorn a couple of girl-girl kisses into his films and not finding any place for them in Tucker: The Man and His Dream, telling James V. Hart- WHATEVER ELSE YOU DO, I MUST HAVE LESBIANS!

Well, Dracula gets on a ship to England, where he slaughters the whole crew and regenerates into his younger self- a kind of weird combination of Geddy Lee and Dale Earndhart. First thing he does upon hitting the shore? Turns into a weird-ass wolf-bear thing and rapes Lucy. I think this form may be what Penny Arcade was talking about when they mentioned Dickwolves. So there you go. Dracula turns into a Dickwolf and...yeah none of this shit was in the novel. So much for being Bram Stoker's Dracula. Hello, Bob Guccione's Dracula! (Or Draculigula, if you prefer).

So Lucy becomes ill after the Dickwolf attack (Dracula bit her), and Dr Seward calls Dr Van Hannib-um, Van Helsing to come check up on her. This leads to attempting a blood transfusion, complete with gratuitous breast shot for no reason. Of course, this leads to the greatest single moment in the film, when Cary Elwes explodes the doors open with his bare hands and bellows "WHAT IN GOD'S NAME IS GOING ON UP HYAH?"

Frankly at this point my concentration on what's happening is broken by the sheer awesomeness of that. The first time I saw that I had to hit reverse and re-watch the scene about ten times. The occupants of the room are lucky he only hit the doors to open them. If he's kicked the doors in he would have decapitated the two doctors!

(Note to self: SCREENPLAY IDEA.)

In the meantime, Dracula takes to stalking Winona Ryder around London, dressed like Willy Wonka. Or a Victorian pimp. I'll let you decide. The movie tries to play his awkward stalking as romantic. Sure, because bothering an engaged woman, taking her to a nudie theater, giving her absinthe and following her home is romantic and not stalkery and creepy. This is a theme you'll see popping up more and more in vampire fiction from the 1970's onward. And it's a load of horseshit that wasn't in Stoker's text. So my opinion- stalking is not cool nor sexy. I don't care if you're a walking corpse or not. It's just something you don't do. Now, this would work fine if the film was playing Dracula as the villain, but IT CASTS HIM AS THE SYMPATHETIC LEAD! Make up your damn minds, writers!


In the meantime Keanu jumps from Castle Dracula (which, you might notice bears an uncanny resemblance to a guy sitting on a toilet) into a river while Winona waltzes around candle filled rooms with Dracula. He finds his way to a church where he's nursed back to health and the Mother Superior shoots a letter of to Winona, who decides to leave Gary Oldman and his pornstache for more EXCELLENT! waters. She sends Drac a letter and he turns into a blubbering mess, crying purple watercolor tears in bizarre makeup and then yelling, "VINDS! WINDS! WIIIIIIIIIIINDS!" (Thundercats, HOOOOO!)


But wait. He was crying. DRACULA was crying. 

What.

Anyways, Dracula decides to end Lucy because Mina abandoned him, which causes the walls to explode with spouts of high pressure blood. It reminds me a lot of Johnny Depp's death scene in Nightmare on Elm Street and I think they wanted to symbolize Dracula having an orgasm or something...which, if that's what they were going for, it's pretty tasteless. Anyhow, the scene ends up with Lucy dead and Mina on her way to meet and marry Keanu, whose hair is now badly dyed gray. 


So until the next arbitrary cliffhanger...TO BE CONTINUED!